Today’s Food Fact:

Five Food Finds about Strawberries

The garden strawberry, Fragaria × ananassa, is a hybrid species that is cultivated worldwide for its fruit, the (common) strawberry.

The fruit (which is not actually a botanical berry, but an aggregate ‘accessory fruit’)

It is consumed in large quantities, either fresh or in prepared foods such as preserves, fruit juice, pies, ice creams, and milkshakes.

Artificial strawberry aroma is 3rd most widely used in food products.

The garden strawberry was first bred in Brittany, France, in the 1750s via a cross of Fragaria virginiana from eastern North America and Fragaria chiloensis, which was brought from Chile by Amédée-François Frézier in 1714.

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1895 Louis Pasteur died. A French scientist, who showed that microorganisms were responsible for disease, food spoilage and fermentation. He developed the process for killing these organisms by heat, called Pasteurization.

1902 Emile Zola died. French writer and critic who was also known as a gourmand. His detailed descriptions of simple meals, banquets and eating in his novels are among the best to be found anywhere. He was also known for his own luxury dinner parties. “What will be the death of me are bouillabaisses, food spiced with pimiento, shellfish, and a load of exquisite rubbish which I eat in disproportionate quantities.”

1954 George Harrison Shull died. An American botanist, he is frequently called the ‘father of hybrid corn.’

If the body does not get enough zinc, it may have difficulty producing testosterone – a key hormone in initiating sexual desire in both men and women. Pecans provide nearly 10 percent of the recommended Daily Value for zinc.

It would take 11,624 pecans, stacked end to end, to reach the top of the Empire State Building in New York City.

Texas adopted the pecan tree as its state tree in 1919. In fact, Texas Governor James Hogg liked pecan trees so much that he asked if a pecan tree could be planted at his gravesite when he died.

Albany, Georgia, which boasts more than 600,000 pecan trees, is the pecan capital of the U.S. Albany hosts the annual National Pecan Festival, which includes a race, parade, pecan-cooking contest, the crowning of the National Pecan Queen and many other activities.

Pecan trees usually range in height from 70 to 100 feet, but some trees grow as tall as 150 feet or higher. Native pecan trees – those over 150 years old – have trunks more than three feet in diameter.

Today’s Food History

1756 John Loudon McAdam was born. He invented macadam pavement for roads. The Macadamia Nut was named for him.

1760 Olof Swartz was born. A Swedish botanist who collected plants in Jamaica and Hispaniola, and published several books on the plants of the Caribbean.

1937 J.R.R. Tolkein’s ‘The Hobbit’ was published. Hobbits were well known as both gourmets and gourmands.

1961 Earle Dickson died. He invented Band-Aids for his wife, who had frequent kitchen accidents, cutting or burning herself. He worked for Johnson & Johnson, who soon began manufacturing Band-Aids.

They are based on flour, potatoes or bread, and may include meat, fish, vegetables, or sweets.

They may be cooked by boiling, steaming, simmering, frying, or baking.

They may have a filling, or there may be other ingredients mixed into the dough.

Dumplings can also be sweet or spicy.

Today’s Food History

1630 Boston, Massachusetts was founded. Nickname, ‘Bean Town.’

1836 Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu died. A French botanist whose ideas formed the foundation of a natural plant classification system.

1900 Hotelier John Willard Marriott was born. Beginning with Hot Shoppe restaurants, then airline catering, and then motels, Marriott built his business into one of the largest, fastest growing, and most profitable hotel and restaurant businesses in the U.S.

It takes 9 seconds for a combine to harvest enough wheat to make about 70 loaves of bread.

Each American consumes, on average, 53 pounds of bread per year.

An average slice of packaged bread contains only 1 gram of fat and 75 to 80 calories.

One bushel of wheat will produce 73 one-pound loaves of bread.

Breaking bread is a universal sign of peace.

Today’s Food History

1380 Charles V of France Died.
* It was Charles V who commissioned Taillevent to write what would become the first professional cookery book written in France, ‘Le Viandier’.
* Forks were mentioned in an inventory during his reign
* Some believe that he died as a result of eating amanita mushrooms.

1630 Shawmut changed its name to Boston. If not for this, we might be eating Shawmut Baked Beans and Shawmut Cream Pie today!

1736 Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit died. Fahrenheit was a German physicist who invented the Fahrenheit temperature scale thermometer. It was the first thermometer to use mercury instead of alcohol, which also extended the temperature range of thermometers.

1835 Charles Darwin arrived at the Galapagos islands aboard the HMS Beagle. The unique fauna he observed on the various islands there helped in forming his theory of natural selection.

1919 Marvin P. Middlemark was born. He invented the TV ‘rabbit ear’ antenna, and among other minor inventions, a water powered potato peeler.

The oldest fast food restaurant in the world is the White Castle franchise, which opened in 1921.

The people of America eat more burgers out at restaurants or on the go than they do at home.

The largest hamburger ever created was over 8,000 pounds and was cooked for a burger festival in Wisconsin.

However, the hamburger in its current form, with ground beef and a bun, is a decidedly American creation.

Hamburgers are made of beef, not ham, and there is much debate over whether they actually originated in Hamburg.

Today’s Food History

1885 Jumbo, an African elephant exhibited by in France, the London Zoo, and finally in the Barnum & Bailey Circus, died after being hit by a locomotive in Ontario, Canada. Jumbo was supposedly 12 feet tall at the time of his death.

1898 William S. Burroughs died. An American inventor, Burroughs invented and manufactured the first adding machine with a printer.

1962 The Four Seasons ‘Sherry’ hits number 1 on the charts.

1965Green Acres TV show debuted.

1971 Greenpeace founded.

1981 The USDA announced that ketchup could be counted as a vegetable in the school lunch program.

1995 Tan M&Ms are replaced by the new blue M&Ms. The tan ones originally replaced violet M&Ms in 1949.